Russell had set the fastest time of all in the first part of qualifying using the medium tyre.
And when he left the pits for his final run in the final session, he questioned the team’s choice of soft tyres, saying: “I thought I said I wanted the mediums.”
The Briton ended up 0.365 off pole and just 0.043secs ahead of Antonelli, who recovered well from spinning off into the gravel early in second practice and missing most of the session.
Eighth and ninth were outstanding performances from Bortoleto and Alonso.
Bortoleto beat Sauber team-mate Nico Hulkenberg by four places and Alonso outperformed expectations at Aston Martin by some margin.
The team were expecting a difficult weekend after they lined up on the back of the grid at the Belgian Grand Prix, another high-speed track, because they have a car with too much drag.
But somehow Alonso got it into the top 10.
“I am definitely happy because it was a little bit unexpected to be in Q3,” he said. “We committed to three sets of tyres in Q1 thinking that was our last session of the day and eventually we found ourselves in Q3 and P8 tomorrow after Lewis’ penalty. So we take it.
“I think it is down to tyre preparation, to be honest. We found the sweet spot on the tyres. It has been difficult to find the peak grip on the first push on the tyres and in qualifying we changed a little but the approach and the car was much, much better.”